Chef Johnny Sheehan hopes his creativity will impress the judges and the public when he competes tonight in the HopChef culinary competition in Boston.

Sheehan, chef at The New World Tavern in Plymouth, will serve striped bass sashimi – raw slices of fish – paired with a Thai style coconut curry, beer-soaked pineapple cubes and candied cashews.

“It’s fun and definitely exciting to get out there and compete,” said Sheehan, one of six New England chefs competing in Brewery Ommegang’s HopChef regional competition at the Cyclorama at The Boston Center for the Arts.

Known for his Asian-inspired dishes, Sheehan had one guideline – use Ommegang’s Hennepin beer in some way. That beer is a Belgian-style brew known as farmhouse saison. It is fermented in an open vat with wild yeast and has a defining spiciness.

“I spent time trying to infuse certain flavors,” said Sheehan, who formerly ran the sushi bar at Clio in Boston and trained at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Cambridge. “The curry spices match a lot of the beer spices. The taste is similar to the way the beer is experienced. It dances in your mouth, starts acidic and a little sweet, progresses to more aromatic and ends with spiciness.”

For the curry, Sheehan combined ginger, orange peel and a spice called grains of paradise, which has a peppery flavor and is used by a lot of brewers. In the beer itself, he soaked fresh pineapple and Thai aromatics for a week. After he removed the pineapple, he cooked the liquid into a syrup, which he used to candy the cashews.

Brewery Ommegang, of Cooperstown, New York, selected Sheehan to compete after tasting his food on a visit to the tavern, which serves 32 brands of draft and more than 100 bottled beers.

Sheehan said he enjoys cooking with beer, when appropriate, because of the variety of flavors.

“The cool thing about beer, as opposed to wine, is that the brewer can put in spices and fruit and impart different flavors, just like a chef does,” he said.

Jody Feinberg may be reached at jfeinberg@ledger.com or follow on Twitter @JodyF_Ledger.